In "Newsline" magazine’s September issue, the latest fashion is the "Kurti" a new female version of the sub-continental summer unisex Kurta made of muslin or ‘Malmal’ as the local language calls it. Also in the same edition ones mind/eyes practically boggled as the shots of the Kurti models wearing skirts revealed 2 inches of the female thigh!!!

In the last months letter, it was reported that K-2 would have its 50 years celebrations next year in 2004 .This year It is Nanga Parbat that has to celebrate its 50 years after it was climbed by the Austrian/German mountaineer Herman Buehl in 1953. The standard SNAFU was caused by the Prime Minister’s secretariat which returned the approval on September 20. It was planned to have the celebrations in June this year, with Mr. Buehl and 20 great mountaineers [ including Reinhold Meissner of Austria – whose brother died climbing Nanga Parbat with him ] attending the ceremonies in Gilgit, Skardu and Islamabad. Mountaineering fans may remember that Buehl was killed climbing Chonmulaiser Peak a few years later. The celebrations will now be held on December 30, 2003 just a day within the 50 year period. Nanga Parbat has the longest vertical drop[ 15,000 feet ] in the world on its Rupal [ South ] face along the Indus River.

Women’s Squash – Pakistan squash women’s champion is Carla Khan. She defeated Bushra Haider at the Bhurban National Championships held on July 4 in Bhurban near Murree. 9-1 , 9-2, 9-0. She is the grand daughter of the legendary Azam Khan [ who won the British Open 4 times in 1959-1962 and was beating Jonah Barrington even after Jonah had become world champion. Carla Khan is the first Pakistani women’s international squash player and recently won the National championships held in Islamabad in mid 2003. Unfortunately no one from the TV or Press covered the young champion. Internationally she is in the top 30 world women squash players. Carla represented Pakistan women’s squash at the Commonwealth Games in 2002.

In an attempt to improve the railways , new Locomotives , carriages and new tracks are being laid with Chinese assistance.

The Karachi Stock Exchange Index underwent a steep correction as it went to around 3988 as of September 29 after reaching a 52 week high of 4602. The average daily volume is 550 million shares.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan SECP are planning the establishment of a National Commodities Exchange [ NCEL] They are currently looking & learning from the experience of the successful launches of Multi-Commodities exchanges in Korea and the problems that were faced in a similar Commodities exchange in India. Gold and Cotton Futures will be the major commodities to be traded. Later as the traders get more sophisticated, major volume imports can be traded with the obvious advantages of locking in to fair prices leading to cost savings. Trading commodities futures such as Palm oil, sugar, crude oil, citrus and mango fruits will benefit farmers and traders as well as Treasurers of Business houses [ Coca Cola- sugar , crude-oil based oil generation ]. India is the world’s largest importer of Gold and hence it makes business sense for India to become the world Gold futures center.

The major participating players are :

1. The Karachi Stock Exchange with 40 % .

2. Lahore and Islamabad stock exchanges each with 10 %.

3. Paid up capital of Rs. 50 million ; Rs. 260 million by giving licenses to 260 brokers at a fixed amount of Rs. 1 million each. This cash equity of Rs. 310 million will be used to develop the automated trading systems.

4. Kuwait Investment Corporation.

Major management issues to control risk in Commodities Futures are:

Margin requirements – here the use of SPAN software from the Chicago Board of Exchange is standard.

Settlement & Clearing issues.

Regulations and Trade Settlement in T+ 3 days to integrate Pakistan with the International markets standards [ Malaysia and India are on their way to T+ 3 systems]

Warehousing & Quality standards of Commodities for Physical delivery.

Equity & Derivatives [ Order Routing /Management & Market Watch ]

Technology issues- Messaging Middleware to be based on International ISO 15022 XML software engines.

Analytics software [Technical Analysis & Fundamentals].

Weather Forecasting integration into Analytics systems.

Front & Back Office – Straight-Through-Processing [ STP] , i.e. capturing data only once.

Major Training programs are a critical success factor for Brokers who remain content with the "Badla" transactions, which are a local form of Margin Futures Trading in India and Pakistan.

Integrating the Cotton Yarn undocumented transactions in Faisalabad. Pakistan cotton is priced at 45 cents a pound in the international market, US Cotton is 51.5 cents per pound

Providing Arbitrage, Hedging and Speculator related intelligent systems.

It has been reported that the Central Bank of Pakistan called the State Bank of Pakistan has recently made a policy decision to allow only Banks with 150 Branches to operate or merge with other banks in the next 2 years.

PTCL privatization [ 26% ] has so far received 3 expression of interest [EOI] . These are WorldCall Pakistan [pioneer of Hybrid Fiber Cable networks, Payphones], Mobilink [Mobile Wireless Phones, Orascom Egypt], and Saudi Oger.

Banks are pushing ahead with major technology and automation projects as per State Bank of Pakistan policy directives. UBL and the First Women’s Bank of Pakistan have launched wireless Wi-Fi [80211] connectivity in their head offices. A consortium of six major Banks [ MCB, Allied Bank, Habib Bank, UBL, etc ] have launched an automated Settlement & Clearing House along the lines of CHAPS, CHIPS in the west. This will enable faster interbank money transfers and hence provide more efficiency and liquidity in the economy.

Shahid Javed Burki has, along with the Jehangir Sidiqqui Company, launched the JS Investment Bank. Burki who retired from the World Bank in 1999 was head of the Latin - American Region , as well as Mongolia and also headed the China division . He has written about 10 -20 major books and started his career with the Government of Pakistan in the Civil Service . He later studied at Harvard and Oxford University.

In a recent interview on Indus TV, Burki said that Pakistan had the potential of increasing its GDP to double digit range of 10 % [ up from the Asian Development Bank’s forecast of 5 %] provided it had political stability. He said that in his meetings with the Chinese leaders Deng, China wanted to use Pakistan as a way out for its landlocked western borders. Hence the Karakoram highway and the Gwadar Port assistance from the Chinese. He said this is why they were now actively courting India in the Information Technology areas and the Chinese Telecom companies Hua Wei and ZTE were investing $ 100 million in Bangalore. Pakistan needs to work with the Chinese and not miss this economic bus of opportunity.

Until next month !

*****